NYC...Getting there is Half the Fun!

Our first trip to New York City began at 5 a.m., or just like any other day. It's kind of sad when you can't sleep in on the first day of your mini-cation, but we had to load up the car, eat breakfast, feed and medicate the animals, and have Max at the kennel before they opened up at 7 a.m. And we did! In fact, we were at the kennel about five minutes early. They were pretty efficient there, and leaving Max, his food and his meds and giving him a good-bye hug while he desperately tried to get attention from his new handler took a grand total of three minutes. Adventures in morning rush hour traffic was not too adventurous, and we arrived at the airport and parked a little after 8 a.m.

Then the real fun began.

The main parking garage (the one closest to the terminal) has no markings telling you which way to walk once you get out of your vehicle. After standing around for a few minutes, we saw a guy who looked like he knew where he was going and followed him. As it turned out, he didn't have a clue either, because as we stood waiting for an elevator, two ladies emerged from a nearby stairwell and told us that the elevator we wanted to get on was at the other end of the parking garage. Whew. So we schlepped back across the parking garage to the elevator area, which was, ironically, pretty darn close to where we parked. Only when we came right up on the elvators did we see the elevator sign, which you couldn't see from the parking area, because the "ELEVATORS" sign was obscured by an overhang. Bozos.

So now we were on our way. Sort of. Neither of us has flown since before September 11, 2001, and all we knew about air travel we learned from the airline website or from friends. When we got to the Continental terminal, we had no clue what we were supposed to go or where to go. Again, there wasn't anyone or any signs telling you what to do. After a few minutes, I was able to break up a group of four Continental employees who were having a klatsch to learn that since we weren't checking luggage and had our boarding passes, we could go straight through to security screening. Once through our surprisingly quick trip through the metal detectors, we checked our flight information and discovered that our flight was leaving from Gate E-1.

We were in Terminal C.

Yeah.

So we went out to the concourse to look for the information booth. We found that rather quickly.

We also found it empty.

Sigh.

Time was of the essence, as it was creeping closer to our boarding time. We found the signs that pointed the direction of Terminal E and started walking. We soon found the entrance to the tram and hopped on that for a short ride to Terminal E. Then we took the long hike through Terminal E to Gate 1, and made it there about five minutes before boarding.

Whew!

Boarding took forever! There was a group of retirees on the flight, and after the challenge of storing their luggage in the overhead bins, the fact that they would need to actually sit down in their seats seemed to be the source of great concern. They preferred to stand around in the aisle chit-chatting, which the flight crew was completely against. Once the seniors gave in and everyone was settled and tucked into their seats, we had to wait. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, but there was a front coming through the area, and if we took off on time, we would just miss it. But there were some people from a connecting flight that we had to wait for.

At least I had a window seat to look out of while we were waiting.



After about a ten minute wait, during which a member of maintenance came and attached the door to the first class loo, we finally left the gate. Rain was starting to fall. It would be a fun take-off.




And a blast it was. If you like roller coasters. Extremely bumpy ride. At one point I lost feeling in my knees when instead of continuing our climb, we actually went down in altitude a foot or so. I'm not sure when the pilot turned off the seat belt light, but when he did, he recommended that everyone keep their seat belts on just in case. The in-flight movie (another first for me) was "I Hate Valentine's Day", starring Nia Vardalos and John Corbett (who also starred in her hit "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"). It was a romantic comedy set in Manhattan about a woman (Vardalos) who has a strict five-date limit on all her "relationships," until, of course, she meets Corbett's character. It was cute, but not something I will run out and buy on DVD.

The lunch they served was really good. A chicken sandwich and a salad. A little Hershey's bar for dessert. The only thing was, they served it at about 10 a.m., right after we got up to cruising altitude and above that nasty weather.

Once they let us turn our electronic devices back on, I took some pictures.




Here is the view without the wing. The moon was visible, but barely, and didn't come out with my camera phone.



The flight was about three to three and a half hours, and pretty smooth until we were about an hour or so out and started going down in altitude. It still wasn't as bad as the take off, though.

I have no idea what this is a picture of, other than the ground from our plane. Somewhere on the East Coast.


Here you can see some of the houses/buildings in the bottom left corner.



When we were coming in to land at LaGuardia, we were flying over water and enjoying the view, when all of a sudden there was land!

And once we hit land, we were stopping! LaGuardia must have a really short runway, and we must have left half of our plane's tires on it. We screeched to a halt and taxied to our gate.

The city welcomed us right away!

It was great to finally be there and be able to walk around. Then we had to find a way to our hotel.

Inside the airport, we were approached by a limo driver who offered to take us to our hotel for $20 each + tolls, and initally we agreed, but he wanted us to wait while his other fares were picking up their luggage. After standing there for a few minutes, we decided that this situation defeated the purpose of us taking all our stuff as carry-on, so we went outside and found a public transportation rep who sold us a round-trip bus ticket (take us to our hotel and pick us up when we needed the ride back to the airport) for $21 each, tolls included. The limo driver guy seemed kind of ticked off we decided to go with this instead, but I told him to get lost, and he did.

The next few pictures were taken from the bus. This is a shot of graffitti, and it was probably the most graffitti we saw when we were in the city. Of course, we were in Manhattan, but still...

In the background, you can see the Queensborough Bridge, aka the 59th Street Bridge. It spans the East River and connects Queens with Manhattan. It took six years to build and opened on 30 March 1909.

The quiet street of Park Avenue. It used to be called Fourth Avenue.


We saw a lot of these signs. They did not seem to dissuade anyone, but there was not a lot of honking. Only when one driver dared to honk did others seem to join in. Something else I noticed as we were winding our way through midtown was that on people's balconies there were lots of flower boxes and chairs and tables. I told the others on our bus ride that in Houston, instead of flower boxes, there would be grills. That got me a couple of chuckles.



There were a lot of interesting ads in New York. And basically, if there is a side of a building, there is an advertisement on it. I really liked this one because they took the idea of an ink blot and used the "crease" in the building very creatively. I took this one from the sidewalk on our way to the hotel. The bus let us off about a block from the hotel.



We were finally in the city!